More roman conundra

It's now six months since touchdown on the continent and the longer I am here, the more I find myself saying that living in Rome is a whole lot of things (many of which don't smell very nice), but living in Italy is just breathtaking....

That said, Rome has a lot to offer the patient adventurer, (as long as that adventurer is also very careful about where they put their feet). The food markets at Testaccio, with blueberry honey, and the "tomato man", who won't sell you a thing until you tell him exactly which dish you are planning to make with his tomaties... then he selects just the right variety from the dozen or so on his stand. There's a horse-meat stall, and loads that sell fresh fruit and veg - all seasonal of course - cured meats, varying strengths of cheeses, massive cuts of meat that they slice to your requirements, and sweet biscuits and pastries that are just lovely after a big lunch...

Nothing in Rome is entirely wholesome though, and word about the office is 'don't buy the fish there, it's all sold by the mafia', and there are a couple of really annoying little guys who come up and pester you to buy bags of whole garlic bulbs. They don't like taking no for an answer, although once you tell them to fuck off a couple of times, they seem to get the message... sometimes they get halfway to approaching you when recognition hits and they back away again... lol

Back on the upside, there's the aroma of cornetti coming up from the deli as I descend into the subway at the train station - always welcoming after the stench of the street and lending an air of 'warm and cosy' to even the nippiest winter mornings.

And now that tourist season is over and the streets aren't so clogged with badly dressed 'stranieri', I've been getting out and about in search of pretty scenic things. Rome may be badly maintained and crumbling at both her heart and her edges, but there are jewels to be found tucked away here...

I've just confirmation my contract will be renewed, and I am so very pleased to know that I will have more time to seek them out.

I really can't say I yet share the view of my Belgian colleague, who declares she hates Rome". "I've left 3 times" she says... "but look"(with a shrug), "still you see me standing here".

I think that point will be quite some way off yet.

copENHAGEN

I was a late inclusion in our official delegation to the world climate conference earlier this month. Three days of mayhem - although my experience was not a patch on that of friends who work at NGOs who were desperately trying to influence negotiations and find out, amid 30,000 delegates worth of rumour and speculation, what the devil was going on.

For my part, I got to enjoy being not one of the important people: my job was to attend seminars on shipping emissions, and renewable energy, and other geeky topics, and to support the launch of the UN-wide first ever carbon footprint.

In between times, I managed to take in a wind energy industry cocktail party in an 18thC Danish palace (complete with anti-Vestas protesters), got escorted through the picket lines on the big day of protest, and generally felt weird being on the "UN observer, right this way please ma'am" side of the fence, instead of being on the "loud but outta the loop" faction.

I also caught up with my Danish chum Astrid, who was an intern with us over the summer and one of my 'new in Rome' chums. And she instantly endeared me to our Copenhagen office by offering me a bed, saving them hours on the phone trying to find a non-existent hotel room. (And no wonder - turns out that although the conference centre only holds 15,000, the COP organisers took more than 30,000 registrations. Getting in was a nightmare for thousands of people... but not me, and that felt VERY weird). Anyway, Astrid welcomed me with a dinner of christmas sausage, rye bread, and creamed cabbage (do nøt laugh, it's the best cabbage dish ever, by far) a bottle of red and endless catchup chatter.

And Copenhagen was properly cold - snowing even - which just emphasised that Copenhagen is a city built for enjoying life. The streets are wide and clean and even, cyclists have dedicated lanes on every major road, as do buses. And why not - 40% of people cycle to work, even in winter. The metro is clean, quiet, reliable and even attractive, somehow making the trip home uplifting rather than exhausting. It's the very model of a well planned city and no wonder Scandies are the envy of the developed world!

All the experience, networking and good times aside, the non-result of the COP after two weeks of negotiations was disappointing. I got more out of my 3 days of workshops than the world got from that fortnight. What a cop-out.

... and Bracciano

I've waited weeks to see Bracciano and finally, in the last days before Christmas, I made it onto a sleepy Sunday train for the hour long journey north of Rome. I found a christmas market, churches complete with huge precepi, a hilltop castle with views of a breathtaking lake... and Jazz playing Santas, a christmas train running through the main streets, and my first glass of quite ordinary Italian wine. Oh, and two of my colleagues, who commute in every day from here... now there's a thought!

...Brian and bagpipes...

It took 5 days and £400, but we got Ants back by Friday, just one day after our mate Brian from Melbourne. Brian is a musician by trade and a teacher by profession. I used to go hear him play every Wednesday at the Dan, just on the off chance that he'd sing a song called Pallet on your Floor, which I love, and am now working on a version of for recording. Ants and I got to know him when he ran the Dan's Sunday session, and famously prophesised when we got together that "it's not love, you're in lust, it'll never last". Ha.


Brian is now teaching in Kuwait, and arrived with three of his teacher chums: Amelia and Debbbie from South Africa and Maureen from Queensland. The girls turned up begging for directions to the nearest bar and, after 2 months in staunchly Muslim Kuwait, demanding sausage, bacon and beer! Brian and I had dinner at ours and pointedly noted somewhere into the second bottle of wine that "this would never be allowed in Q8"... what he meant was that never in a million years would he be allowed to visit a married woman while her husband was out, and, once it was known he'd stayed overnight (even on the couch), "They'd be out the front waiting with pebbles for you in the morning". It's another reminder of how far women still have to come in many parts the world. (Or rather, how much MEN still have to learn!)


Brian also brought cheerful confirmation that we are indeed the only english speakers in our street and perhaps the whole block. "I stopped at the cafe up the road and said I was staying with some friends who live here, and the lady said oh, the tall blond man and his wife'..."


Friday night brought session-ey goodness with the Irish music Italians we are getting to know at a pub in town. Surprise surprise, Brian was a hit. We filled the weekend with food and wine and music and chatter and wandering around a stack of old stuff - Ants and I are getting quite good at this tour guide thing. All too soon ,it was time for them to head back to the middle east. But we cant wait to see them again.





The following weekend we kicked off the festive season a little early, with the St Andrew's Day ball of the Caledonian Society of Rome (who knew Rome even had such a thing!?), run by a colleague of mine who happens to have been the president for the past five years. Only at the UN, surely. It was a cracking good night - I'd dragged along our new Aussie chum Kate (recently out of WFP North Korea), and she brought one of her interns. We all looked gorgeous and danced lashings of ceilidh. And it was pretty exciting to have new friends to share our adventures, because despite the pipers, there were plenty of reminders that we weren't still in Kansas, Toto... The food was italian, and the drink of choice was prosecco. On the upside, there was enough of the Water of Life to ensure that the local Presbyterian minister was far too pissed to drive us all home. We all piled into his Tarago anyway, accepting his assurances that God would look after him in this holiest of cities...although I did seriously consider getting out when he drove the wrong way up the offramp for the motorway.


Next morning - erm. okay, it was afternoon - we hauled ourselves down to meet a former London colleague of mine, and his lovely partner, who is a Kiwi. It was worth every scrap of early post-prosecco agony. We had a lovely time with Keith and Yvonne, meandering through the Christmas market at Piazza Navona, the Campo dei Fiori, and I finally remembered where the bus goes from that takes you up to the top of the Janiculum Hill and the Garibaldi monument. Then we went for dinner in Trastevere, in a restaurant with enormous steaks and huge slabs of seafood on ice in the windows and front display cabinets. Maybe not the classiest invitation to dinner, but the meal was memorable, as was the company. Keith was one of my earliest mentors when I was first promoted back in the day, and this plain spoken big bear of a man has a heart of gold. It was good to be able to both brag a little at how much I'm enjoying the job, and living "abroad", while acknowledging the hard stuff - the challenges of playing backstop for Ants, who is still finding his feet, the complexities of paperwork and the uncertainty around contract renewals. For his part, Keith readily supplied all the best of the office gossip from the last 5 months, and told us the story of Keith and Yvonne. I love it when two people with some years more living than we do, discover each other - its totally romantic. We headed off into the night with embraces and seasons greetings and it really does feel as though the festive season has already begun. Roll on.